Self Love

In my literature class, we just read a short story about a princess who couldn't decide which suitor to marry and ended up falling in love with a collection of junk items that seemed to be enchanted to resemble a reflection of herself. The Royal Advisor who assembled this seemingly supernatural contraption took the princess's attraction to it as a sign that the princess would only ever love herself, calling her selfish and spoiled. However, in our discussion of this story, some of us wondered whether it actually is wrong for a person to love themselves, or whether a certain amount of self love could actually be healthy.

My answer to this question is that it certainly is okay for a person to love themselves. In fact, we may even be commanded to. Jesus said "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and "Love one another." If we are supposed to love others and if we're supposed to love others as much as we love ourselves, that means that we are supposed to love ourselves. However, it is possible for self love to go too far. If our self love turns into self absorption or self obsession, then we have arguably gone too far.

As to whether the princess went too far, I think that, by the end of the story, she had. Even knowing that her lover was a pile of junk, she fawned over that junk until it nearly killed her and almost certainly drove her at least temporarily insane. Naturally, we don't need to take our self love that far. We can leave it as loving ourselves to the same extent that we love our best friends. It is good and healthy, mentally and spiritually, to love ourselves as much as we love others, no more, no less.